Tumblr Guide - Tumblr Posts
My personal guide to tumblr (that I just made now randomly): feel free to not use but imma just put this out there cuz why not
- reblog. Reblog however much you want. Don’t hesitate.
Reblogging helps boost posts and also shows the post on your page aswell!! They also kind of replace comments to some extent? It’s a bit like Threads on Twitter/X. When you reblog, it shows up on the „notes“ of the original poster, which shows the total interactions of the post excl. new followers (I think?)
- talk about and post anything you want!!
Usually you would consider that your main blog. Once you get more comfortable on the platform and want to organize your content, you can create several blogs to post about things seperately.
- just like on other social media, tags gain reach.
But unlike tiktok and some others, tags are also like communities of their own almost, but also not really? Idk how to explain it. But what’s different is, due to these communities being created under the tags, keep your tags on topic. A lot of people complain about finding posts unrelated to what they were looking for due to that.
- the algorithm works a bit differently than bigger platforms
Not a major change but instead of stealing your information, Tumblr uses your last interacted posts to generate an algorithm on the home feed. Unlike tiktok which sometimes needs a few days to have a certain feed, tumblr does it within like 5 posts, which has its pros and cons. It also recommends what your mutuals and friends like at times on your feed, so don’t be surprised about random posts.
- last but not least, have fun, express yourself!!
Tumblr is currently such a safe space for me. You can find your communities easily and don’t often get a lot of hate due to the algorithm which is amazing. Also, there isn’t the whole „fame competition“ aboht who has more followers or more notes on a post. I reblog as much as I want, not caring about not getting interactions that much if it isn’t my own post especially.
There is a lot of safe spaces for hated identities and not a lot of cancel culture because everyone minds their own business.
Enjoy your stay, fellow critter! (And friend :3)
[Enjoy your stay, fellow critter! (And friend :3) ]
how do i work tumblr
aaaaaaaa therians help me what do i do
I can't believe I spent over an hour on this.
[My head hurts to much to transcribe at the moment so if anyone wants to do that themselves, then go ahead!]
tumblr guide for new users:
1) there is no algorithm for your dashboard. can't stress this enough. your dashboard is in chronological order of posts and reblogs from people you follow. "based on your likes!" is a joke and they removed that feature in a week
2) because of the lack of algorithm, likes do nothing. if you want more people to see a post, you have to reblog it so it goes on your follower's dashes
3) the vast majority of posts on a person's blog tend to be reblogs. think 90% or so. some of those will have that person commenting on it, and more will have tags
4) comments stay on reblog chains, while tags only show up on your reblog of that post. it's kind of like a whisper voice. in either case, both op and the person you reblogged from see that in their notifications
5) tags don't go in the body of the post. writing "staying in #lasvegas" won't make it appear in the las vegas tag, it'll just look weird
6) it's totally normal to reblog and post multiple things in one day. it's normal to reblog the same post twice in a row. it's normal to have 100 posts+reblogs in a day. post limit (the total number of original posts and reblogs) for a single day is 250. you heard me. 250. go hog fucking wild
7) it defaults to having a visible likes tab on your blog (but only on your blog, not the dashboard) but most people toggle it off
8) "tumblr clout" is a fucking joke. no one can see your follower count, and no one makes money here. there are no influencers. enjoy not giving a shit about maintaining a public persona. it's all anonymous and your employers won't find you here
Tumblr cultural knowledge
The phrase 'cultural knowledge' is basically an insult and a criticism in my industry. If something isn't written down and shared in a way that's identifiable, accessible, and clear to the applicable individuals, it doesn't exist. Meaning that the correct usage will be lost as time and people change.
Here are a few things I've gleaned in my relatively short time of being an active tumblr user. (NOTE: 95% of my time here is via the mobile app). Please correct me if I've got anything wrong. I'd adore to see any that you've picked up as well.
Continue Reading Button: it's the last one in the tool bar. Looks like a zigzag line between two straight lines. I've added one to this post after this point. Even if you've selected the 'shorten long posts' option on your profile, that won't apply to reblogs. Save everyone's feeds and add it yourself to posts longer than three standard paragraphs.
Gifs: the search utility for gifs legit sucks. There is a logic applied but I can't say I've fully cracked it. What you CAN do if you want to add a specific gif to a post is paste the url of the gif's post into the gif search. Grab this via the three dots menu of any post, there'll be a copy link option. This will only grab the first image of that post though. BUT it will include the proper credit below the gif. Here's an example:
Gif credit: tapping the username below gif will open the source post.
Reblogs: the reason reblogs are so important for tumblr specifically is because the feed doesn't present posts to you outside of your parameters. Those parameters are mainly: 1) blogs you've followed and 2) tags you've followed. You reblogging a post gives it a chance to be seen again within the parameters you influence. So if you don't have any followers, you've got to add tags that ppl may have followed. If you don't use tags on posts, it can only be seen by those who follow you (theoretically, I've chatted with a few moots about the fact that we don't see each other's posts in the feed).
Post Edits: Reblogs don't sync with the original posts. If you edit a post, all of the reblogs will not update with the edits and will exist exactly as the post was when it was reblogged.
Was this helpful? I've got a few more oddities I've encountered but they seem more like workarounds to defects and I've tried to list the pain points I've personally noticed that seem to result from the intended design of tumblr.
This is the only place where I can block negativity and drama and live happily
It’s so sad to me how scared the Twitter and Reddit refugees are of making mistakes on this website.
Dear refugees, as someone who used to be on both Twitter and Reddit but who uses Tumblr the longest of all sites (besides Youtube):
This is the website without cringe culture. Don’t be ashamed. You won’t get downvoted or beat up for even your weirdest opinions because frankly, 90% of the users on this website are either neurodivergent or queer or a mix of both (me, I’m talking about me)
This website is like the table of bullied kids you always used to avoid in highschool.
We all know we’re different, strange, cringy, obsessive.
That’s why this place holds so little judgement.
We aren’t insecure incels. We embrace our differences.
So if you want to talk about your unhealthy life obsession dedicated to a sidecharacter from an unknown animated movie from 1978 that had approximately 2 minutes of screen time - do it.
Heck even dedicate a whole sideblog to them for fucks sake.
This platform is literally what the ancient prophecy has foretold:
We are cringe, but we are free
The block button is my love
So you have crawled to the hellsite and are planning to resist the tribulations and stay
Welcome. There is a saying that the devil knows best because he is old, not because he is the devil.
I am that devil here and I've been here for 7 years now. Have some tips.
If no algorithm then how content?
Content gets to you via the people you follow. Everything you see in your dash will be things the people you follow posted or reblogged.
And thus the first thing you should do is start following people whose content you wish to see in your dash. And how do you find those people?
You go to Tumblr's search function, type the name of the fandom or character you want to see content off, and then you'll find a ton of content organized by popularity. Give a click to the posts you like and look around a bit at that person's blog see if you'd like to see them more often. Repeat this as many times as you'd like.
If you'd like to follow smaller blogs, you can set it so the results prioritize recent posts, and thus you'll find newer posts that you can click on and take a look at the blog see if it's to your liking.
There is no easier way than that. Sorry. But the good news is the more you do this, the more posts you'll see on your dash, and the more blogs you will be introduced to like this.
Hey I do not like the person/post that has landed in front of my eyeballs
Good news you are in possession of a very powerful tool called. The block button.
If you see something you despise and that it somehow missed the filtering and blacklist (we will get to that don't worry) you can block the person that posted such heinous things one quick tap/click on their profile pic and you'll be on their blog from where you can push the three dots (in pc)/ little icon person (in mobile) to block that user.
Peoples use the block button very generously, and you should to! Didn't like someone's take? Block. Annoying? Block. The theme of their blog is too saturated so it hurts your eyes? Block.
Block. Block. Block.
Curate your online experience since afterall is yours and also no one will know better than yourselves how you'd like it to look.
And also because inciting drama raises the chances you get blocked, kung pow penised or just obliterated
Any filters? I definitely want things to just never get near me
As obtuse as Tumblr tagging and search system can be, the blocking and filtering feature can do its job arguably well. If you want something banished to the shadow realm you can filter it (so it never even appears on your timeline and searches) or you can block it (so the post will appear in front of you but with the content obscured so you can choose if you have the mental spoons to deal with that today)
To block and/or filter open your blog's settings -> general settings -> visible content
And there will be the option to add tags you wish to filter and/or block.
How interact with posts? (BY REBBLOGING)
Okay reblogging is just one option you have commenting, liking, and reblogging. Let's go one by one
Commenting: by pressing the dialogue bubble icon on the lower right corner of a post it will open the "notes" of the post where you can leave a comment. If you do only op will see a notification, but anyone that opens the notes section can see your comment and @ you to reply
Liking: by pressing the heart icon in the lower right corner of a post, the post will be liked and stored in your personal liked posts (that list can be made private in the settings and I encourage you to do it). That's it. The number of total notes may go up but it serves more as a bookmark than anything else, it won't boost posts. So if you want to boost a post you should Reblog.
Reblogging: before we go in how to reblog is important to stablish a difference.
Rebbloging =/= reposting
Rebbloging means taking a post you see and using Tumblr's function of reblogging it so a copy of it will be in your blog, where the original poster and contributors are still visible and the notes your reblog garners will still go to them, meaning you have helped op further their reach. This is not stealing.
Reposting means taking a photo of a post, or the images on it, downloading it to your phone/pc, and then making your own post with those images and claiming the content is yours so you get all the notes and reach. That is stealing
With that clarified, this refers to the former. To reblogging.
Now. Here is how you reblog.
By pressing the icon of the two arrows pointing at each other you can reblog a post. This means the post you reblogged will appear on your blog and will be visible to the people that follow you. This is how posts get around Tumblr, by being reblogged so they reach more people that will eventually reblog them. Don't worry about the theme or consistency or aesthetics of your blog, you can reblog pretty much whatever (you can even reblog something multiple times but that might be annoying) and it'll be fine.
By reblogging some options open for you.
If you are interested in just spreading the post around, doing a quick reblog (hold reblog icon and drag to the pfp of the blog you wish the post to appear on) is the easiest solution.
A regular reblog opens you to add something to the post, that addition then counts as a post for you, and will get notifications if reblogged.
If you feel you just want to comment or your addition wouldn't fit in a post but still want to add it, the tags are your friends. They are there in theory to help you label things for easier searching, but Tumblr's search function is kinda broken, so they end up being used to comment. Want to show extra love to the op, or yell at them or just add to the chaos you are seeing? put in the tags. All the key smashes, all the I HATE YOU/POS all the blorbos of your shows go there
I am so excited to leave twitter permanently as soon as possible
and i made a powerpoint for twitter migrants so they can use this hellsite correctly lmao
im very proud of it :)
I've got no idea what I'm doing.
I have been on this app for a full half an hour and as of now, I have already felt the pain of a lost draft. My (very limited) time here also has enlightened me to a few things:
1. This is a hellsite (affectionate?)
2. I MUST reblog or I will rot in deepest pits of hell.
3. Twitter migration. (No, I didn't have a Twitter acc. Yes, I live under a rock but at least it's peaceful sorry not sorry)
4. Destiel is some ship that's canon apparently?? But what does that have to do with Putin tho...
5. This site for some unfathomable reason does not specify dates of the posts !?! So you don't know if the thing you're seeing is from yesterday or a year ago. Noice~
6. Tags are supposedly important but they don't make sense to me yet so I'm just gonna spam them or smth.
7. You guys don't realise but you use way too much tumblr lingo for a "guide post". Like wtf is "asks" now.
8. Tumblr blaze rocks. Idk even what it is yet but it does. It really does. I can tell already.
That's it for today. My battery's about to die.
Hmm tags do sound useful that way.
And I have been getting some real weird ads. So that explains it, I guess.
I've got no idea what I'm doing.
I have been on this app for a full half an hour and as of now, I have already felt the pain of a lost draft. My (very limited) time here also has enlightened me to a few things:
1. This is a hellsite (affectionate?)
2. I MUST reblog or I will rot in deepest pits of hell.
3. Twitter migration. (No, I didn't have a Twitter acc. Yes, I live under a rock but at least it's peaceful sorry not sorry)
4. Destiel is some ship that's canon apparently?? But what does that have to do with Putin tho...
5. This site for some unfathomable reason does not specify dates of the posts !?! So you don't know if the thing you're seeing is from yesterday or a year ago. Noice~
6. Tags are supposedly important but they don't make sense to me yet so I'm just gonna spam them or smth.
7. You guys don't realise but you use way too much tumblr lingo for a "guide post". Like wtf is "asks" now.
8. Tumblr blaze rocks. Idk even what it is yet but it does. It really does. I can tell already.
That's it for today. My battery's about to die.
My phone is alright though and that's all that matters.
Still, thanks for taking the time to reply. I think I got tags better now.
Hm so basically, you gradually sneak into the fandoms.
One last question, if you make two Tumblr accounts with the same email address, are they related or synced in any way or just completely different seperate entities?
Thanks for your welcoming words. I think I found the ask option if you're reading this lol.
So I was thinking we can reblog and reply... but won't the post get too long after a certain period of time? Or does that not matter?
Also, how do communities or similar things based on interests work here?
Tags are deceptively easy but thier use still remains elusive. So that short (or medium or long, your choice) description might be appreciated.
Hello again! I'm glad you found my addition to your post helpful. I have a lot of free time right now, so I wrote a lot- I hope it's not overwhelming.
Long posts
Posts getting long doesn't really matter. People can tag #long post when reblogging it (i'll get to tags later), tumblr recently added a function that automatically shortens long posts, and you can put a readmore (like I did here) on your own posts. So if someone doesn't like long posts they can avoid them, but in general, though, people on tumblr are fine with long posts.
Replying matters even less than reblogging for making a post long- it's basically a comment section for the original post.
Tags
Tags have four main purposes: Organizing things on your own blog, commentary, content filtering, and finding posts/making your posts visible.
Organizing things on your blog is pretty straightforward- I have most of my organizational tags in my pinned post, if you'd like to look at them.
Commentary also doesn't need much explanation, but generally little comments like "cool!" or "i agree" go in the tags rather than as a reblog. You can also write whole essays in the tags if you want, and if someone likes them they can screenshot them or copy-paste them into a reblog. Here's an example of that (i got a good grade in tags!).
If you make an original post, and you want to put a content warning on it, you would put the thing you're warning for spelled clearly (not censored!) in the body of the post and the tags. You can also tag things like #___ tw, #tw ___, and other variations, and also put a readmore, but generally the first two will work really well. If someone has that tag filtered or that content blacklisted, even if someone doesn't tag that warning in a reblog, it will still be filtered.
Finding posts/making your posts visible is where fandoms and such come in. Say I'm a fan of TV Show. I can go to the #tv show tag on tumblr to find original posts that people have tagged with #tv show (I would have to look in the notes of those to find good additions). I can follow that tag to make it more accessible in tumblr. To engage with the fandom, I can reblog and add to posts I find in the tag, make my own posts about TV Show with that tag (make sure it's one of the first 5 tags on the post), follow people who post about TV Show, and interact in other ways with the people there, like sending asks.
That's about all I have to answer your questions- Other people are welcome to add onto or correct this post.